What does the New Testament say about the Temple of God?
There are two main words that the NT authors use from which we get our English word temple.
The BDAG (probably the most highly recognized Greek lexicon) gives us these definitions:
1) naos is used 45 times in the NT and is defined as: a place or structure specifically associated with or set apart for a deity, who is frequently perceived to be using it as a dwelling, temple.
2) hieron is used 71 times and is defined as: sanctuary, temple. (In every instance both the NASB and the ESV translate it only as temple.)
Though it might be a little overly simplistic to say it this way, the general difference between the two is that hieron is used to speak of the temple as a structure, whereas naos carries with it the additional connotation of dwelling place of God.
With this foundation laid fist we will look at how Paul uses these two words in the New Testament.
Only in 1 Corinthians 9:13 does Paul use hieron saying, "13 Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings?"
In the next verse Paul goes on to say that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. The context is pulled from the OT picture of the priests that served at the Temple and received food from the offerings. Paul uses hieron because he is making a direct reference to an OT practice that took place at the physical OT Temple structure.
Paul uses naos eight times in six verses: 1 Cor 3:16 & 17, 1 Cor 6:19, 2 Cor 6:16, Eph 2:21, and 2 Thes 2:4.
In the first five Paul uses naos to speak about either the church or our bodies as being the temple - dwelling place of God. This fact is indisputable because Paul interprets his usage of naos in each of the five verses.
1 Cor 3:16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
1 Cor 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
2 Cor 6:16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
Eph 2:19 So then you (the church/Christians) are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
As you can see in each and every instance, Paul himself interprets for us how he is using naos, and never does he use the word to refer to the literal, structural Temple as he did when he used hieron in 1 Cor 9:13.
This brings us to the Paul's final use of naos. I will quote the extended context for clarity.
2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, 2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he (the man of lawlessness) takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. 5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 6 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, 10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
As you can see the greater context is dealing with the "man of lawlessness" often called the antichrist. Paul is comforting the church by telling them that the final day of the Lord has not yet come because rebellion and the man of lawlessness must come first, and it is this man of lawlessness that will take his seat in the temple (naos) of God.
I am sure that most (if not all) of you reading this post will have heard the saying, "We must let Scripture interpret Scripture." The idea is that we allow easier passages to interpret harder passages, and we allow the authors of Scripture to speak for themselves and not force our framework upon the text.
Admittedly this is a far more challenging text than the previous five where naos was used. With that in mind we must lean heavily upon Paul's previous usages to help us in interpreting this passage. Based on all of Paul's previous usages we should initially lean away from a literal, structural interpretation of the word temple. This certainly does not mean that our work is done, however we must be willing to check our presuppositions (assumptions) at the door, and see that based upon how Paul uses naos it is less likely that the literal, structural Temple is in view here.
As we continue on seeking to let the context cement our interpretation, we see that Paul says the "mystery of lawlessness is already at work" and continues on to explain that there is a restrainer, but one day that will be taken away. We must also recognize the similarities between Paul's words here and John's in 1 John 2:18-26:
18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. 20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. 21 I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. 22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 24 Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life.
26 I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you.
Notice that John says that antichrist is coming, but also many antichrists have already come. He continues to say that the antichrist is "he who denies the Father and the Son." Later in chapter 4 John will say that the spirit of antichrist is denying Jesus is God come in the flesh. (1 John 4:1-6)
Both John and Paul make it clear that this deception is ALREADY taking place in their day. John clearly says, "it is the last hour" because many antichrists have come. As we read these words nearly 2000 years later we realize that John was not using "last hour" in an any second sense of the word, but was saying that antichrists deception must come before the end and it has already begun. When we put these two pieces of the puzzle together we see that there were antichrists or there was the spirit of the antichrist denying Jesus is God come in the flesh, there will continue to be antichrists/the spirit of antichrist, and it also seems that there will one day be a final antichrist or a consummated spirit of antichrist that is yet to come.
This brings us back to 2 Thessalonians 2. Like John, Paul recognizes the "mystery" that is bound up with the spirit of antichrist and this lawlessness one. Paul says, "The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved."
By digging into this final phrase I feel that we can confidently understand Paul's use of naos in this passage. There are two main interpretations possible for this passage:
1) Paul means the literal, structural Temple in Jerusalem
2) Paul is referring to the church as the temple of God
If Paul is referring to a literal, structural Temple in Jerusalem then everyone would agree that would need to be a future temple that is to be rebuilt in Jerusalem. Today there is no Temple in Jerusalem, and the last temple that was there was destroyed in 70 AD. Now that the Jews are once again residing in Israel (the first time since 135 AD after the Bar Kokhba revolt) they are attempting to rebuild the temple so that they can resume their regular sacrifices and feasts, and this position believes that it is in this to-be temple that the man of lawlessness will "take his seat." But notice what Paul says in the verses quoted above, that those who are perishing are doing so "because they refused to love the truth and so be saved."
If this scene is played out in a future Jerusalem temple, then those that are deceived by the man of lawlessness are refusing to love the truth and so be saved. The glaring problem with this interpretation is that if a new temple is built in Jerusalem, the sacrifices that take place in it will point not to God, but away from Him! A future temple would cause it's Jewish adherents to look to animal sacrifices to atone for sin, and cause them to believe that by adhering to moral, dietary and cleanliness laws they will achieve holiness. But the author of Hebrews unequivocally rejects this possibility
Hebrews 10:1-4 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? 3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Read that again, "For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." But if Paul is referring to a future temple, then it must be a Jewish temple that is looking to the blood of bulls and goats for a sin covering. More importantly as verse 1 says, the law and the sacrifices were merely a shadow of the good things to come, Jesus has brought in the reality. The real is has arrived, we must never go back to the faint shadow of the past.
An illustration I heard may help: A man met his wife and then went overseas to finish his studies and they would write to each other often. When he would write his letters to her he would look endearingly at a picture of her, sometimes even holding that picture close while thinking of her. Now after 30 years of marriage if he were to be found clinging to the picture while ignoring his wife, he would probably be sent to see a doctor. You see before he had only a picture of the real thing, but after 30 years of marriage the real thing was with him always and there was no longer a need to cling to the picture and hope for the reality.
The law, sacrifices, priesthood, and temple were all shadows, pictures pointing us to the day the reality would come. In Matthew 5:17 Jesus said that He came to fulfill the law and the prophets - He is the reality! Hebrews 8 teaches us that Jesus is the True Great High Priest. Hebrews 9 and 10 Christ's blood, the blood of the New Covenant, is what truly atones for our sins since He is the true sacrifice to which all the previous sacrifices pointed.
The most crucial point for rejecting the literal, structural interpretation of naos in 2 Thessalonians 2 is: THERE IS NO SALVATION IN EARTHLY TEMPLE SACRIFICES. Because Paul closes that section saying, "...because they refused to love the truth and so be saved," he cannot be referring to temple sacrifices and practices and so the man of lawlessness cannot be deceiving those in the temple to not believe in the truth that leads to salvation. This is because there is no salvation to be found in animal sacrifices that are represented in an earthly Jerusalem temple.
However, the church has been given the message of the gospel, the message of the true sacrifice of Jesus who died on the cross for sinners. Only the church carries the message of the gospel, that if rejected results in those who refuse to believe being deceived! Just as Paul typically used naos to refer to the church as a temple of God, he does here too. Only the church as temple - dwelling place of the Holy Spirit - can make sense of this passage.
In this study we have seen:
1) Paul never used naos to refer to a literal, structural temple, which makes it doubtful that he would do so in 2 Thess. 2:4.
2) Paul and John both recognize the antichrist as deceiving believers (e.g. those who deny that Jesus came in the flesh), which would not be applicable to Jews in a rebuilt temple.
3) Only if the Antichrist takes his seat in the church can he deceive people from believing the truth unto salvation.
Where does this leave us?
Does this prove that there will not be a future temple built in Jerusalem? - Not necessarily. What it does or should do is help Christians to realize that the antichrist is not waiting for a temple so that he can begin his deception. Rather as we have seen, the spirit of antichrist is already among us in the church, and it will get worse before the end. We need to know what we believe and why we believe it, and our beliefs need to be grounded in the Word speaking for itself. Finally, we need to look to Jesus the "author and finisher of our faith" because it is ONLY through the proclamation of the gospel that ANYONE (Jew or Gentile) can be saved.
The BDAG (probably the most highly recognized Greek lexicon) gives us these definitions:
1) naos is used 45 times in the NT and is defined as: a place or structure specifically associated with or set apart for a deity, who is frequently perceived to be using it as a dwelling, temple.
2) hieron is used 71 times and is defined as: sanctuary, temple. (In every instance both the NASB and the ESV translate it only as temple.)
Though it might be a little overly simplistic to say it this way, the general difference between the two is that hieron is used to speak of the temple as a structure, whereas naos carries with it the additional connotation of dwelling place of God.
With this foundation laid fist we will look at how Paul uses these two words in the New Testament.
Only in 1 Corinthians 9:13 does Paul use hieron saying, "13 Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings?"
In the next verse Paul goes on to say that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. The context is pulled from the OT picture of the priests that served at the Temple and received food from the offerings. Paul uses hieron because he is making a direct reference to an OT practice that took place at the physical OT Temple structure.
Paul uses naos eight times in six verses: 1 Cor 3:16 & 17, 1 Cor 6:19, 2 Cor 6:16, Eph 2:21, and 2 Thes 2:4.
In the first five Paul uses naos to speak about either the church or our bodies as being the temple - dwelling place of God. This fact is indisputable because Paul interprets his usage of naos in each of the five verses.
1 Cor 3:16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
1 Cor 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
2 Cor 6:16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
Eph 2:19 So then you (the church/Christians) are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
As you can see in each and every instance, Paul himself interprets for us how he is using naos, and never does he use the word to refer to the literal, structural Temple as he did when he used hieron in 1 Cor 9:13.
This brings us to the Paul's final use of naos. I will quote the extended context for clarity.
2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, 2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he (the man of lawlessness) takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. 5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 6 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, 10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
As you can see the greater context is dealing with the "man of lawlessness" often called the antichrist. Paul is comforting the church by telling them that the final day of the Lord has not yet come because rebellion and the man of lawlessness must come first, and it is this man of lawlessness that will take his seat in the temple (naos) of God.
I am sure that most (if not all) of you reading this post will have heard the saying, "We must let Scripture interpret Scripture." The idea is that we allow easier passages to interpret harder passages, and we allow the authors of Scripture to speak for themselves and not force our framework upon the text.
Admittedly this is a far more challenging text than the previous five where naos was used. With that in mind we must lean heavily upon Paul's previous usages to help us in interpreting this passage. Based on all of Paul's previous usages we should initially lean away from a literal, structural interpretation of the word temple. This certainly does not mean that our work is done, however we must be willing to check our presuppositions (assumptions) at the door, and see that based upon how Paul uses naos it is less likely that the literal, structural Temple is in view here.
As we continue on seeking to let the context cement our interpretation, we see that Paul says the "mystery of lawlessness is already at work" and continues on to explain that there is a restrainer, but one day that will be taken away. We must also recognize the similarities between Paul's words here and John's in 1 John 2:18-26:
18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. 20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. 21 I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. 22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 24 Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life.
26 I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you.
Notice that John says that antichrist is coming, but also many antichrists have already come. He continues to say that the antichrist is "he who denies the Father and the Son." Later in chapter 4 John will say that the spirit of antichrist is denying Jesus is God come in the flesh. (1 John 4:1-6)
Both John and Paul make it clear that this deception is ALREADY taking place in their day. John clearly says, "it is the last hour" because many antichrists have come. As we read these words nearly 2000 years later we realize that John was not using "last hour" in an any second sense of the word, but was saying that antichrists deception must come before the end and it has already begun. When we put these two pieces of the puzzle together we see that there were antichrists or there was the spirit of the antichrist denying Jesus is God come in the flesh, there will continue to be antichrists/the spirit of antichrist, and it also seems that there will one day be a final antichrist or a consummated spirit of antichrist that is yet to come.
This brings us back to 2 Thessalonians 2. Like John, Paul recognizes the "mystery" that is bound up with the spirit of antichrist and this lawlessness one. Paul says, "The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved."
By digging into this final phrase I feel that we can confidently understand Paul's use of naos in this passage. There are two main interpretations possible for this passage:
1) Paul means the literal, structural Temple in Jerusalem
2) Paul is referring to the church as the temple of God
If Paul is referring to a literal, structural Temple in Jerusalem then everyone would agree that would need to be a future temple that is to be rebuilt in Jerusalem. Today there is no Temple in Jerusalem, and the last temple that was there was destroyed in 70 AD. Now that the Jews are once again residing in Israel (the first time since 135 AD after the Bar Kokhba revolt) they are attempting to rebuild the temple so that they can resume their regular sacrifices and feasts, and this position believes that it is in this to-be temple that the man of lawlessness will "take his seat." But notice what Paul says in the verses quoted above, that those who are perishing are doing so "because they refused to love the truth and so be saved."
If this scene is played out in a future Jerusalem temple, then those that are deceived by the man of lawlessness are refusing to love the truth and so be saved. The glaring problem with this interpretation is that if a new temple is built in Jerusalem, the sacrifices that take place in it will point not to God, but away from Him! A future temple would cause it's Jewish adherents to look to animal sacrifices to atone for sin, and cause them to believe that by adhering to moral, dietary and cleanliness laws they will achieve holiness. But the author of Hebrews unequivocally rejects this possibility
Hebrews 10:1-4 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? 3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Read that again, "For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." But if Paul is referring to a future temple, then it must be a Jewish temple that is looking to the blood of bulls and goats for a sin covering. More importantly as verse 1 says, the law and the sacrifices were merely a shadow of the good things to come, Jesus has brought in the reality. The real is has arrived, we must never go back to the faint shadow of the past.
An illustration I heard may help: A man met his wife and then went overseas to finish his studies and they would write to each other often. When he would write his letters to her he would look endearingly at a picture of her, sometimes even holding that picture close while thinking of her. Now after 30 years of marriage if he were to be found clinging to the picture while ignoring his wife, he would probably be sent to see a doctor. You see before he had only a picture of the real thing, but after 30 years of marriage the real thing was with him always and there was no longer a need to cling to the picture and hope for the reality.
The law, sacrifices, priesthood, and temple were all shadows, pictures pointing us to the day the reality would come. In Matthew 5:17 Jesus said that He came to fulfill the law and the prophets - He is the reality! Hebrews 8 teaches us that Jesus is the True Great High Priest. Hebrews 9 and 10 Christ's blood, the blood of the New Covenant, is what truly atones for our sins since He is the true sacrifice to which all the previous sacrifices pointed.
The most crucial point for rejecting the literal, structural interpretation of naos in 2 Thessalonians 2 is: THERE IS NO SALVATION IN EARTHLY TEMPLE SACRIFICES. Because Paul closes that section saying, "...because they refused to love the truth and so be saved," he cannot be referring to temple sacrifices and practices and so the man of lawlessness cannot be deceiving those in the temple to not believe in the truth that leads to salvation. This is because there is no salvation to be found in animal sacrifices that are represented in an earthly Jerusalem temple.
However, the church has been given the message of the gospel, the message of the true sacrifice of Jesus who died on the cross for sinners. Only the church carries the message of the gospel, that if rejected results in those who refuse to believe being deceived! Just as Paul typically used naos to refer to the church as a temple of God, he does here too. Only the church as temple - dwelling place of the Holy Spirit - can make sense of this passage.
In this study we have seen:
1) Paul never used naos to refer to a literal, structural temple, which makes it doubtful that he would do so in 2 Thess. 2:4.
2) Paul and John both recognize the antichrist as deceiving believers (e.g. those who deny that Jesus came in the flesh), which would not be applicable to Jews in a rebuilt temple.
3) Only if the Antichrist takes his seat in the church can he deceive people from believing the truth unto salvation.
Where does this leave us?
Does this prove that there will not be a future temple built in Jerusalem? - Not necessarily. What it does or should do is help Christians to realize that the antichrist is not waiting for a temple so that he can begin his deception. Rather as we have seen, the spirit of antichrist is already among us in the church, and it will get worse before the end. We need to know what we believe and why we believe it, and our beliefs need to be grounded in the Word speaking for itself. Finally, we need to look to Jesus the "author and finisher of our faith" because it is ONLY through the proclamation of the gospel that ANYONE (Jew or Gentile) can be saved.
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